


K.O.

by Kansas42



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, Guilt, Panic Attacks, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 18:38:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4575408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kansas42/pseuds/Kansas42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sheriff, Scott, and Melissa all find out about Donovan. Only one of them handles it well. Spoilers up to 5x08.</p>
            </blockquote>





	K.O.

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty obviously not how 5x09 is going to go, but I needed to write some Melissa & Stiles family time, because they’re kind of the best, and lately I can really see them squaring off against Scott and the Sheriff on the Morality Train. I wish Melissa and Stiles had more scenes together.
> 
> Also, I've come to realize that I have never written a Teen Wolf fanfic without (a) Stiles having some kind of panic attack or emotional breakdown, (b) someone making him feel better, and (c) at least a reference to the Nogitsune. This will not be the fic to break that trend.

Stiles does this thing, sometimes, whenever he’s anxious or stressed -- so whenever he’s awake, basically, or no, how about whenever the Earth is still spinning and his best friend is still a werewolf and his mom is still dead -- where he has to play out all the ways a situation can go from Bad to World-Ending Catastrophe. 

Donovan, for instance. Stiles killed Donovan (in self-defense, he’s sure about that, he’s almost always sometimes sure about that) and that’s Bad, like, in every sense of the word: pragmatically, lawfully, ethically -- there is basically nothing good about it at all, except that it’s pretty much the only reason Stiles is alive, and Stiles, he likes being alive, he does, he’s absurdly attached to the whole process, even if it does suck so, so much of the time. But. It’s Bad because now he has this guilt turning his stomach, making him jittery, this little voice in his head that insists there’s always a Plan B, that he should have found another way out, that Donovan was a Big Festering Pile of Anger Issues but not a monster, not of his own volition, anyway. And then that little voice is warring with another little voice that says that Stiles had no choice, that he wasn’t trying to _impale_ Donovan, he was just trying to get away, and Theo -- the creep -- is at least right about justifiable homicide; what happened isn’t good, sure, but it’s also not his fault. And then there’s an even smaller voice, a whisper or an echo, that says it _is_ good Donovan’s dead, that Stiles is glad for it, and he could do it again, would do it again, to protect himself or his pack. That maybe this is something Stiles is meant for.

It’s tearing him up inside, these voices, the cognitive dissonance, the belief in too many conflicting truths -- but he can handle it, he knows he can; he can do all his bleeding on the inside and keep moving because that’s what everyone needs from him, because that’s what life _is_ in Beacon Hills: you just have to keep moving until everyone’s safe, or until you’re dead. It’s Bad, it’s all-around Bad, but he can do it -- because nobody knows what he’s done. Nobody important, anyway -- Theo McDouche doesn’t count.

But if Scott finds out, if _Dad_ \--

That’s the Total Catastrophe. That’s the meltdown point. 

So, Stiles plays it out, repetitively, obsessively, all the various ways everything can go straight to hell. 

Dad finds out, starts drinking more, like he used to. 

Scott is angry, yells that this isn’t what they do. 

Scott kicks him out of the pack. 

Dad pulls out his handcuffs, crying but steady – he’s so very Lawful Good these days, so certain in his duty, even if that means locking up his only son. 

Dad has a heart attack. 

Scott insists it wasn’t Stiles, it couldn’t be Stiles, not really. It has to be the Dread Doctors; they must have done something to him, or else the Nogitsune, some hidden piece of fox still lodged in his brain. Scott insists that Stiles can be helped, can be fixed, and when he finally realizes that Stiles was always broken -- 

That’s it. Game over. K.O.

This thing Stiles does, playing out the angles, really, it doesn’t help, like, at all. He isn’t sure if he’s searching for a way out, a winning argument, a divine move -- or if it’s just some kind of coping mechanism, a screwed up way to prepare himself for the inevitable goodbye. Either way, it doesn’t work -- he’s all out of divine moves, and he knows better than most that you can’t prepare yourself for the fall. It doesn’t matter how many defenses you put up, how long you saw something coming -- it’ll still be a sucker punch to the balls, an agony that somehow manages to surprise you. You can’t prepare yourself for the end of the world. You know it’s coming, and then suddenly it’s here.

It’s here.

#

He’s at Scott’s house, when it happens.

Scott’s in a pretty low place, it turns out, which isn’t so surprising, considering how freaked he’d been about Liam going missing, freaked enough to do something so totally ethically dubious that even Stiles, Booze Enabler and Wendigo Killer, was like, _Dude, let’s hit the pause button, okay_? Scott’s all guilty about not finding Liam himself, about letting Hayden getting captured in the first place and completely failing to capture a Dread Doctor. He even feels guilty for Kira leaving, which, as far as Stiles can tell, doesn’t have anything to do with him -- but Scott’s acting like everything that’s gone wrong since the beginning of the school year is some kind of sign that he’s failing as a True Alpha. Basically, he’s trapped in a massive werewolf shame spiral.

So, Melissa -- proving, once again, that she’s pretty much the best -- calls Stiles and arranges an old school pizza/video game night for her son, because -- for the moment, anyway -- everyone’s alive and safe, and while that probably won’t last long, sometimes you have to take a breath, just for a second, to stay on your feet, to keep moving forward. And let’s face it: bosses in video games are a lot easier to deal with than inhuman mad scientists who screw with your limbs and teeth and memories. It’s good, sometimes, having an enemy you can easily defeat.

Scott lightens up a bit when Stiles comes over, and surprisingly, Stiles does too, because he remembers this from before; he remembers when it was just the two of them against the world, and the world didn’t have werewolves or nogitsunes or darachs, only bullies and midterms and awful-but-not-actually-homicidal teachers.

And then the doorbell rings, and Stiles figures it’s the delivery guy, and he goes ahead to answer it, and --

“Hey, Dad, what’s -- oh God, what’s wrong?” He backs up to let Dad in, but Dad doesn’t move, just stands and stares at him with this awful expression on his face, this look Stiles knows but can’t immediately place. “What is it? Dad? Is someone dead, is -- ”

He steps forward, and Dad -- twitches. _Flinches_.

Stiles stops. He places the look.

“Yeah, Stiles,” Dad says, voice rough and eyes wet. “I think someone is dead.”

#

They stare at one another.

Distantly, Stiles hears Melissa and Scott come into the room behind him, hears Scott’s confusion, Melissa’s concern. Stiles steps back again, bumping into a table, and Dad comes inside, carefully shuts the door behind him.

“Tell me it’s not true,” Dad says.

Stiles swallows.

“Tell me you didn’t do it, and I’ll believe it. Stiles? _Make me_ believe it.”

But he can’t. He can’t do it; he’s all out of lies, out of excuses. All his words have abandoned him because he knows that look, he remembers that look, and he can barely move at all.

Dad puts a hand over his eyes, takes a breath.

“Okay, what the _hell_ is going on here?” Melissa asks, walking over to them. “John? Stiles?” She reaches out, hesitantly, to touch Stiles on the arm, and _that_ restarts the batteries, at least -- he pulls back, hastily, arms wrapped around himself. His shoulder hurts again. He rubs it because why the hell not?

He doesn’t look at Melissa, doesn’t look at any of them.

“He tried to kill me,” Stiles whispers.

“If that’s true,” Dad says -- and Stiles breaks a little more, at that _if_ \-- “then why didn’t you come forward? Why did you try to hide it?”

“I -- I didn’t -- I -- “

“Didn’t what? Stiles! Didn’t what!”

“Enough,” Melissa says, stepping between them. “Look at him, John, he’s -- ”

“He killed Donovan!”

Silence. For a second, no one breathes at all, and then Stiles, crying, quietly says, “Easy, Dad. I don’t think the neighbors heard you.”

It’s basically the worst reaction he could have had. 

Dad steps forward, past Melissa, and his face is apoplectic red. “Do you think this is a _joke_?” 

Stiles laughs. He can’t help himself. “Sure,” he says, and yeah, it was _definitely_ better when he wasn’t talking -- but now he can’t stop; now he’s angry and shaking with it. He looks up, and okay, maybe he can’t quite meet Dad’s eyes, but he doesn’t back up, doesn’t give ground. “Pack of werewolves, werecoyotes, kitsunes, and the only killer is the human with mad Jenga skills and some handy scaffolding on his side. Ha-ha, it’s funny, cause I almost died.”

“Stiles -- “

“I didn’t know what to do!” Stiles yells, and his hands are in fists now, short nails tearing into his palms. “He was dead, and I’d killed him, but I never, I never _meant_ to kill him. Dad, you’ve gotta believe that; I was just trying to get away. But if I hadn’t, if I hadn’t done it, I’d be dead, so when I saw his body, I was.” He shakes his head. “I was scared and I was horrified and I was _relieved_.”

But Dad, he doesn’t want to hear that, flings his arms up and turns away, hands hovering close to his ears. “You should have come to me,” he says.

“Yeah? Cause you’re having such a reasonable reaction now?”

“Don’t.” Dad turns, actually points at Stiles. “You killed someone, Stiles. You killed a _person_. Whatever he became, whatever the Dread Doctors turned him into, he was still a person, with people who cared about him, with a _future_.”

Stiles swallows. “Okay,” he says, because that’s true, he knows that’s true; that keeps him awake at night with everything else that keeps him awake at night. “But I’m a person, too, Dad. I’m supposed to have a future, too. Should I have just let him kill me? Would you rather I was dead, as long as that meant I was good?”

Dad shakes his head, but not at the question, at the whole situation. At the world. At his son.

“Okay,” Melissa says, “Maybe we should step back, take a minute -- “

But Dad doesn’t even hear her, focus all on Stiles. “You know, the first time you ever lied to me, you were three years old? You broke a bowl because you were mad I had to go to work instead of staying home to play with you. You tried to say the neighbor’s dog did it.” He doesn’t look angry anymore, just exhausted. Wrecked. Bewildered. “You’ve been lying to me your whole life, Stiles, but I can’t, I just can’t remember when you got _good_ at it. Sometimes, it’s like maybe I never knew you at all.”

Stiles inhales sharply. Can’t exhale. Everything inside him is squeezing shut. “Don’t say that,” he manages. “Please, Dad, you know me. You know me.”

But that’s probably the problem because Dad’s looking at him and Stiles remembers that look, even if it wasn’t Dad who wore it last.

“ _He’s trying to hurt me. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but he is_.”

“I can’t do this,” Dad says, finally, turning. “Not right now.”

“Dad -- “

Dad looks over his shoulder, hopeless and resigned and something else, something Stiles doesn’t want to think of as fear. “I should arrest you, you know. If I was the officer of the law I’m supposed to be . . . but I guess I haven’t been that in a long time.”

“No, Dad,” Stiles says. “Don’t think that, don’t -- don’t go. Please don’t go. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”

Dad nods. “I’m sorry, too,” he says, and leaves.

#

The moment stretches out, long and still and silent, only breaking when Scott’s phone goes off. 

Scott.

Stiles turns. Scott’s staring at him like -- well, like Stiles murdered somebody, and oh God, Stiles _murdered_ someone, or killed someone, anyway, and now -- Dad, will he -- he’ll come back, of course he’ll come back -- he has to, he’ll, he has to -- and Scott --

“Scott?”

Scott’s phone goes off again. He pulls it out of his pocket and stares at it. “It’s Theo. There’s trouble at the school. I’ve got to go.”

Right. Right. This is Beacon Hills. 

Keep moving.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Let me just -- “

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Scott says, and Stiles just stops. 

“But -- “

“You really killed him?”

“Scott -- “

Scott looks away. “How could -- Stiles, you _killed_ someone.”

“Scott, I didn’t have a choice.”

Scott nods, still not looking at him. “Okay. Okay. We’ll talk about it later. Just -- stay here. We’ll. We’ll figure it out.” 

He doesn’t really believe that, Stiles can tell, and feels himself shaking. He thinks maybe he’s shaking apart. “You believe me, don’t you? Scott? You believe I didn’t have a choice?”

Scott just won’t meet his eyes.

“I have to go,” he says, and leaves, just leaves.

#

Now it’s only Stiles and Melissa in the house.

He needs to go. He needs to leave before she can leave him too, before she can walk out the door or kick him out, before anyone else can turn away from him. He can’t take that hit, he can’t; the world is already collapsing around him now, on top of him, crushing him. There’s a ringing in his ears he can’t place; it’s Coach’s whistle, Lydia’s scream, Mom’s flatline.

It’s all over now.

“Stiles -- “

Melissa. She let him in her home after the Nogitsune, after he sat on the couch and toyed with her emotions, preyed on her fears. She didn’t have to, but she did; she forgave him, took care of him, even when she was still afraid of him -- because she knew it wasn’t really him who had taunted her, who’d knocked out Kira and tortured Scott. It wasn’t really him then, but now, now --

He really needs to go now.

Except. He doesn’t think he can move. He feels strange, light. Disconnected. His body is here, but maybe he’s not fully inside of it, and he says, “I guess that was an epic fail slumber party,” and even his voice sounds wrong, like it’s floating, drifting away.

“Stiles?”

“I’ll go,” Stiles says, but his body isn’t working right, it’s locked down. He can’t feel his hands or feet.

“Stiles? _Stiles_?”

Melissa’s face blurs in front of him, but he can’t really see her, only half-aware of her fingers touching his face, pressing into the side of his neck. He’s just . . . drifting . . . 

. . . away . . . away . . . away . . .

“Okay, c’mon, kiddo. Come here. It’s okay.” 

Hands just barely on his shoulders, guiding him. He stumbles into something, and she gently pushes him down. The couch, he’s sitting on her couch, and he shouldn’t be here. She doesn’t want him here, not really. She’s going to go. Everyone goes --

“Shhh.”

There’s a blanket over his lap. She’s sitting next to him, squeezing his cold fingers, rubbing small, comforting circles into his back, through his hoodie. Humming something soothing and just a little off-key.

He’s crying.

“Give them some time,” Melissa’s saying, and he realizes she’s been talking for a while, and he has no idea what she’s been saying or how long they’ve been sitting here like this. “They’ll figure it out. They’ll come back. Yes, they will, Stiles. They love you, and they’ll come back.”

“I killed him. I killed him.”

“I know, Stiles. But it wasn’t -- “

“She thought I was trying to kill her.”

“Who?”

“Mom,” Stiles says, and Melissa’s hand stops moving on his back. “She thought I wanted -- “

“Stiles. Sweetheart, your mother was sick. You know that. She never -- “

“You didn’t see her, the way she looked at me. It’s how . . . that’s how Dad looked at me tonight.” Stiles takes a breath that shudders and hitches all over the place. “Like he saw something inside me, something damaged, broken. Like he realized maybe she was right all -- “

“Stiles, no. He’s just upset, confused. He doesn’t -- “

“No,” Stiles says. “No, I think, I’ve been thinking. Maybe Mom knew something.” Melissa immediately shakes her head, but he pushes on. “No, it makes sense. She saw it inside me, the . . . darkness. Bad wiring. And the Nogitsune, he saw it too; that’s why he picked me instead of Allison or Scott, because. I’m not the good one. I’m not good. Scott couldn’t have done it, he couldn’t have killed Donovan, but I -- “

“I’m glad you did it.”

Stiles stares at her.

Melissa meets his eyes evenly. “If the choice was between you and the kid trying to kill you?” She nods. “I’m sorry you had to do it, but I’m glad you did it, Stiles. I don’t know what we’d have done, if we lost you, and I only wish you’d said something sooner so you wouldn’t have been going through this all on your own. I know you, kiddo, and the only thing wrong with you is that you never ask for help when you need it. That, and maybe your awful taste in baseball teams.”

He laughs. It’s sort of a bubbling, gasping sound, but his chest feels a little looser once he does it. “The Mets are going to win someday.” 

“Like hell.”

She wraps her arm around his back, pulls him toward her. He rests his head on her shoulder, knowing that he shouldn’t, that he needs to pull away because she doesn’t usually mother him like this, or he doesn’t let her mother him. He’s not supposed to want that. He had a mother. He doesn’t deserve another one.

“It’s okay,” he says, after a minute. “You don’t have to pretend you think I did the right thing.”

Melissa doesn’t let him pull away.

“Maybe it wasn’t the right thing,” she says, “but it wasn’t the wrong one, either. There’s more than one way to be a good guy, Stiles, and you, you are one of the good guys.”

“I don’t know if Dad believes that anymore,” Stiles says. 

“He will, once he pulls his head out of his ass.”

Stiles laughs again. “And Scott?”

“My son is a kind, brave, generous person who, occasionally, has his head up his ass. But he always figures it out, in the end. He had spectacular parenting.”

“He really did,” Stiles says, and Melissa smiles at him.

They just sit there for a while. Melissa goes back to humming, and Stiles closes his eyes, lets himself drift for a little bit again, but not like before. It’s better. It’s not good, but it’s better. 

Eventually, she pulls away and he looks at her.

“Think you can eat something?” she asks. “The pizza finally came about twenty minutes ago.”

“No?”

“Let me rephrase that. You’re going to eat something.”

“Uh. Okay?”

Melissa gets the pizza. They chew it silently for a while. It tastes good, which he feels weirdly guilty about. He’s not supposed to be enjoying pizza when he’s killed someone, when his dad and Scott don’t believe in him anymore, when the world is falling apart. But. Melissa’s still here, and the pizza _is_ good, and sometimes you have to take a breath, just for a second, to stay on your feet and keep moving.

And he wants to keep moving. He isn’t ready to stop.

Stiles finishes his second piece and says, “I’m not sure if I believe it anymore, either. That I’m good.”

Melissa nods. 

“I guess I’ll have to believe it for you then,” she says, shrugging. “Until you can.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this one was a bit of a challenge, particularly where the Sheriff's concerned -- I usually love the Sheriff, damn it. Trying to get his voice here without turning him into a completely unreasonable dick was a bit of a struggle. I possibly did not succeed, but I wanted to post this before Monday, so. To hell with it, right? :)


End file.
